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Wednesday, March 21, 2018

WWU - Practice, and Speedwork

This coming Sunday, we have another race on tap - the Texas 10 Series. I've run it twice before, but with how crummy I felt about my last race, I wasn't feeling very good about this one, so Jeff and I talked about running the route ahead of time, just to see if that helps get my feelings of dread out of the way beforehand. Hey, it's worth a shot, right? Our group was split up last Saturday between spring break activities and another race, so the few who were available decided to meet at the high school where the race will be held and run the route.

Jeff and I, along with Diane, CC, Loretta, and Mason, all met up at our usual 6:00 am start time. I mapped it out ahead of time, but not being very familiar with the area, it was a bit of a crapshoot if we'd hit all the turns, especially in the dark. The race will be 5 miles, but the route I mapped was a little short - still, it would be enough to get a feel for the course plus work out my anxiety. CC and Loretta decided to cut the route ahead of one of the turns, so while they started out behind us, they ended up in front of us.

We set off running, and it went OK. This was our first wicked hot morning of the year - it was 72 degrees, with 94% humidity, and with not being used to those conditions just yet, sweat was pouring off of us like a waterfall. It was pretty gross and made me glad I was carrying a full bottle of Tailwind with me for hydration. We ran 2:00/30 intervals - before the run, I thought that for this race, I might try running each mile without stopping and then taking a little walk break, but once we started running, I realized that this route won't be the best for that kind of challenge for me - it has a few rolling inclines and by golly, sometimes I just want to walk up a hill, you know?

Anyway, it was interesting in that shortly before we hit our turn into a park trail, which was around 1.25 miles in, I had that feeling of dread, of "I can't do this" - which I KNOW is so dumb. I can do it, but my brain goes haywire. We made the turn and in some way I felt more committed to the run, and the rest of it went better, mentally. Hopefully this will help for Sunday's race.

A funny thing happened during the run - we'd made a turn onto a long stretch when both Jeff and Diane leaped over something lying on the sidewalk. I looked at it and realized it was a blanket, and then I looked again and was pretty sure it was Mason's blanket, so we stopped and I picked it up to carry with me the rest of the run. We ended up handing it off to each other on that stretch, because it was such a hot thing to carry, but it wasn't a big deal and we were happy to have rescued it. The road finally leveled out enough that we could see the blinking lights on CC and Loretta in the distance; we saw them cross the road, and then almost immediately turn around and cross back - that's when they realized they were missing the blanket! We ended up meeting them midway on the road and gave them the now very sweat-soaked blanket...so while they were not planning on running as far, with the backtracking, they added on some extra distance after all.

We finished the run with 4.5 miles - funny thing, I'd remembered the last stretch of that race as being pretty hilly, but it wasn't that bad, so hopefully it will feel that way on Sunday.

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Diane and I went to Planet Fitness on Monday, where we did the 30-minute circuit room, one ab machine (that's about all I'm good for, LOL), and then we did the two leg machines (abductor and adductor) that seem to help with my hamstring/glute area. I probably should start and finish the workout with those machines; I think they are good for my aches.

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Yesterday, Diane and I set out to run our usual two miler around my neighborhood. We had perfect running weather - it was 52 degrees, low humidity (WHAT??) and a nice little north wind. We ran our first mile doing intervals at a good pace, but we ended up doing speedwork for our second mile! There was no talking, just fast running - we pushed hard for each of those two minute intervals, and then we'd get a short 30 second walk to recover before starting again. It was the longest speedwork I've done in forever - at the gym I was only doing 1 minute on the treadmill, and my pace wasn't as fast as it was for this session. We both were out of breath and ready to be done during the last minute, but we kept up the pace and finished! It's funny - when I woke up I was feeling the PF workout we'd done the afternoon prior and figured the run would be hard, but for whatever reason, speedwork happened, and it happened to go well. You just never know with running...

Afterward, I wanted to take a picture of our speedy feet for posterity - we stood under our new carriage lights and posed:

These feet were impressive on Tuesday!

...and then an interloper got in the picture - "yu need more feets in diz shot?"

Oh that humidity! I couldn't stand it! But so nice you had a break yesterday! That's funny about the blanket, that two people just jumped over it but you stopped to examine it. Good mom! I love both of your shoes--so pretty. And Paco looks so sweet in that picture.

I've been out in vv cold and wind chilly weather over the last few days and feeling grumpy about it to the point where I let it affect my run and turn it into a walk on Saturday.This morning I suddenly had the thought that in just a few months it would be warm and I'd be grumpy about my pace which has been pretty good in the cold weather. Evidently I'm never satisfied haha.

I wish I could help you with this race anxiety. Hopefully one of these races it won't happen and you'll be able to figure out what was different!

Well, we runners are rarely satisfied, so you're not alone. I will say that even though I relish running in 50 degree weather, it's still cold and I have a hard time forcing myself outside to run. Now, I'm always glad I did, but cold plus dark equals a reluctant runner.

Isn't it funny how, sometimes, when we give ourselves permission to just take it easy because we're sore from a workout, it ends up to be a great run? I usually do speedwork Wednesdays on the treadmill, but had a hard 5k on Saturday, a 14-mile bike ride on Sunday and a hard elliptical workout on Monday, so I thought I'd just run easy this morning. Sure enough, when I hit 5 minutes, I was ready to push it. It ended up to be a hot sweaty success! There is just no rhyme nor reason to it, and I guess that's why we treasure those good runs so much. Good luck on your race this weekend - pre-running the course is a brilliant idea :-)

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